Hi friends! I'm working on an assignment for a class I'm taking and I wanted to get your feedback on a question: What questions should teachers strive to ensure that students can answer about functions? I am curious what others would say. I have a list of ideas, but checking if I forgot anything - ThreadSky

druinok.bsky.social • 45 days ago

Hi friends!

I'm working on an assignment for a class I'm taking and I wanted to get your feedback on a question:

What questions should teachers strive to ensure that students can answer about functions?

I am curious what others would say. I have a list of ideas, but checking if I forgot anything

Comments

burnsidemath.bsky.social•43 days ago

I would just add the idea of a function as an operator. Maybe that’s not the correct wording. An example - some of my students reach Calculus and think cos(2x) is cos times 2x. More needed with basic input/output. Chain rule is always eye-opening to function misunderstandings.

druinok.bsky.social•43 days ago

Thank you!

Also been thinking about you with the weather reports! Stay warm and stay safe!

burnsidemath.bsky.social•43 days ago

Thanks. As long as every stays off the roads and we keep power it should be a fun novel experience for us here!

karencampe.bsky.social•43 days ago

^^ what @burnsidemath.bsky.social said ... there are so many ways to misinterpret parentheses!! Number 5 in this post.

https://karendcampe.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/problems-with-parentheses/

juliaerin80.bsky.social•45 days ago

How does form follow function? Or are you thinking function in a mathematical sense?

druinok.bsky.social•45 days ago

I'm not sure I understand your question.

This is for an assignment in my Teaching of Algebra class. I already had a list generated, but thought I'd ask on here for ideas I might have missed

juliaerin80.bsky.social•45 days ago

Aaahhhh ok in humanities we look at "function" differently. 😁

druinok.bsky.social•45 days ago

ahhh! Makes sense :)

I should have tagged my post with the math tags - sorry!

juliaerin80.bsky.social•45 days ago

No apologies! The algorithms play games with us all. 😂

germinalmaths.bsky.social•45 days ago

Would this be useful?

dsrussosusan.bsky.social•45 days ago

What year/course? In algebra 1, I want mastery of function notation, function or not, some vocab like increase, decrease, max/min, y-intercept.

druinok.bsky.social•45 days ago

valid point on clarifying the level! Thanks for that reminder!

dsrussosusan.bsky.social•45 days ago

By end of A2, I want zeros and interpreting functions, relative vs absolute max/min, domain/range.

dsrussosusan.bsky.social•45 days ago

In PC, inverses and transformation. (Gotta walk the dog. Will think more!)

kearnsn.bsky.social•45 days ago

I agree with all of these although I may add that I find it's important to not just be able to do these in one representation but to be able to fluently switch from one to the other in addition to what you're saying

druinok.bsky.social•45 days ago

That's a great point! Being able to find f(3) on a graph vs using an equation vs a table might be challenging for some students

dsrussosusan.bsky.social•45 days ago

(BTW, if you ask what they *don’t need to know about functions, it’s mapping diagrams. 🤪😉😂)

karencampe.bsky.social•45 days ago

Yes yes yes transformations ... how parameters A,B,H,K do the same thing to graphs of every function category.
And as someone else said: multiple representations for functions.

dsrussosusan.bsky.social•45 days ago

Also: families of functions, which helps with modeling.

In PC: look at limits and end behaviors. Piecewise. Continuous or not.

mathowitz.bsky.social•45 days ago

Not sure it fits here (maybe more order of operations?) but also de-composition... Thinking for chain rule, order of transformation (horizontal stretch and shift)...

malmeida.bsky.social•45 days ago

I'd add composition for PC

mathowitz.bsky.social•45 days ago

Solid list. Not much to add.

independent vs dependent variable (input v output).
saw composition- combining in other ways (f*g)

I hate that on mobile you can't see other posts... Was domain/range mentioned?

druinok.bsky.social•45 days ago

it was mentioned by @dsrussosusan.bsky.social

mathowitz.bsky.social•45 days ago

I saw that. When replying on mobile, it's only possible to see the post you're directly replying to, not the whole thread... And I was too lazy to cut, discard, go look and then start responding again.

keyhyers.bsky.social•45 days ago

Major characteristics of function family and understanding of real data/phenomena that the functions model. Using functions as real models is missing from most K-12 coursework, but it is the reason understanding functional behavior has applications outside of academia.

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